Getting her to stay
by Trespaises
Summary: Finally fixed those formatting problems. A continuation of Daphne's Room. What happens after Daphne walks in...


This continues from 'Daphne's Room.' Dedicated to everyone who keeps Frasier alive and kicking on the web.  
  
Getting Her to Stay  
  
By Amy (amydekanter@yahoo.com)  
  
  
  
Niles always imagined that the world slowed down a bit whenever Daphne was near, but this time it froze. Daphne stood open-mouthed, staring in turn at her room, her things and at the guilty Cranes - both human and animal - stock-still in their respective compromising positions.  
  
"Well," she said finally. "Perhaps when you are all done with my things you will do me the favour of packing them up. Save me the trouble." The shock of her words countered the shock of what had just occurred. She was already stalking away when they suddenly unfroze and, continuing the routine that would have made the Marx brothers proud, tripped over and over themselves trying to reach the door.  
  
"Daphne!" Niles gasped.  
  
"Daphne, wait!" That was Frasier.  
  
"Daph..." Dad cried out in pain as he went crashing to the floor and Eddie started barking madly.  
  
"Dad!" Frasier turned to help but Dad waved him away.  
  
"Go!" he grimaced, grabbing his hip. "Don't you let her leave, Frasier."  
  
To his credit, Frasier was the first to disentangle himself and the first out of the room, with Niles close on his heels.  
  
Daphne had already reached the front door.  
  
"Daphne, please, I can explain."  
  
"You will accept my resignation, won't you Dr. Crane?"  
  
"Daphne, can't we just talk about this? I'll do anything." Frasier's words echoed Niles' thoughts. He would do anything...  
  
"Oh, my. Just a bit of déjà vu there. It's almost as if I dreamt you said exactly the same thing to me not fifteen minutes ago."  
  
"I know, you promised you would stay if I promised never to go into your room again." Frasier glared at Niles. Oh, dear god. This was his fault. Not only was Daphne leaving, she was leaving because of something he had done.  
  
"Well, since you've kept your side of the bargain it's only fair that I keep mine." Daphne opened the door. "I'll come by tomorrow to collect my things. Good-bye, Dr. Crane." Cold eyes shifted for the first time onto Niles. "Good-bye, Dr. Crane."  
  
And she was gone.  
  
"Well, I hope you are happy." Frasier snapped. "Dad will never forgive me."  
  
Niles did not answer. He stood staring at the door that had just shut behind the one person who gave meaning to his soulless life.  
  
"Where are you going?" Frasier called after him as Niles bolted out of the apartment and squeezed into the elevator just as the doors were closing.  
  
"I don't want to look at you," Daphne said, which perhaps explained why she did not.  
  
"Daphne, please," Niles begged. "This was all my fault."  
  
"I don't care anymore," Daphne stared straight ahead. "I'm calling my old agency tomorrow."  
  
"Daphne, no..." His heart was screaming. "Stay at my place," Niles said the words he had wanted to say for a year.  
  
Daphne did not even acknowledge his suggestion with a glance.  
  
"Maris would be pleased as punch to have you," Niles said, with more desperation than conviction. "You can have the entire South Wing with all the privacy you need; it's even fitted with its very own alarm system."  
  
"Well, I'm just glad you find all this so amusing," Daphne said as the elevator doors opened. "Good-bye, Dr. Crane."  
  
It hurt just as much to hear the words a second time as they had the first. Worse. Niles followed her out of the building, his eyes stinging with tears. She could not leave. Not without returning his heart.  
  
"Please..." She still refused to look at him. Daphne started down the street. "Where will you go?" he asked, forcing himself to think - and speak - rationally. "Tonight, I mean."  
  
"Somewhere I can have my privacy, for once. Not have to worry about you or your brother or your father or even the dog getting your jollies pawing through my things."  
  
"Daphne..." Niles stopped. It was true that he had got his jollies, so to speak, from that brief moment of insight into how his goddess lived but he had never meant for this to happen. Now that same goddess was disappearing into the icy night, never to return again. Niles sprinted after her.  
  
"Daphne, I'm begging you," he said as he reached her. "If you can't forgive me, at least take these."  
  
She still did not look at him or break stride. He reached out and touched her arm.  
  
"Please," he said again. "I promise I won't ask you for anything else. Just take them."  
  
Daphne stopped, still not looking at him.  
  
"What are they?" she asked.  
  
"The keys to my car," he said. "Wherever you are going, please drive. What we did was unforgivable, but it's late and none of us will be able to live with ourselves if anything should happen to you."  
  
He held his breath, waiting for her answer. Finally, she looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised. She held out her hand. Numb with relief, Niles dropped the keys into them.  
  
"Where is it parked?" she asked.  
  
"Downstairs. Do you... can I give you some money for a hotel?"  
  
"No, I'll be fine." She did not look fine. In fact, she was looking less fine by the minute. Her face was still hard edges but those edges were fraying making them slightly -- only slightly - less stony. "You had better help me find the car," she added.  
  
Anything. Niles would do anything for her.  
  
They reached the basement together and Niles pointed out his Mercedes. He stood still to give her space after that, watching her walk away again, slowly dimming the only light his life had ever known.  
  
Daphne paused by the car, her dark eyes uncertain as she looked back at him. Niles held his breath as she sighed.  
  
"If I'm taking your car you'll be needing a ride home," she said.  
  
"I wouldn't want to...I mean, if you are sure..."  
  
"I'm not," she said. "So you had better get in the car before I change my mind."  
  
Niles was at the car in a flash.  
  
"I'm still driving," Daphne told him. Niles would not have it any other way.  
  
His hands dug into each other as she drove, jerking around a machine meant to be coaxed. Luckily, the Mercedes handled beautifully, keeping all four wheels on the ground when she took turns harder and faster than laws of physics normally permitted. Perhaps, like Niles, the car was willing to do anything if so guided by Daphne's touch.  
  
Without bothering to slow down, Daphne found a radio channel bleating heavy metal and turned the volume up high enough to make the windows vibrate. Niles clamped his jaws and said nothing, although he did wish for once that he had not invested so much on his state-of-the-art sound system.  
  
While the music was only slightly less painful than acid poured down one's ear canal, it seemed to have a soothing effect on Daphne, and after only a couple of barely-indistinguishable numbers, she turned down the volume.  
  
"You weren't just testing me, were you?" she asked. "You were really willing to let me take your precious car."  
  
"I don't blame you for thinking the worst of me," Niles said. "But I do want you to be safe."  
  
Daphne turned up the volume, then turned it back down again, bothered by some inner struggle.  
  
Suddenly the car lunged sideways into the parking lot of a suspect establishment with the letters 'n' and both 'r's unreassuringly malfunctioning in the words 'Your Diner.' Daphne pulled between two vehicles whose entire resale value combined would not begin to cover even one of his Mercedes' installments.  
  
"Are you in a hurry to get back?" she asked.  
  
Niles suddenly remembered that the entire reason he had gone to see Frasier tonight was to gloat that Maris had asked him to come home early. She had mentioned that the vitamin B12 injection she had had to receive this morning had replenished her energy and that there was a chance of an encore of the previous night's activities. If they had sex tonight that would be three times in two days, shattering the record they had set on their honeymoon, ten years ago.  
  
He had intended to rush right home, but the temptation to show off to Frasier had been too great. It was not often Niles had a chance to say he had more sex than Frasier, especially not since Frasier had divorced Lilith.  
  
"Dr. Crane?" Daphne was waiting for him. And so was Maris. And his beloved car was vulnerably sitting in the parking lot of 'You_ Di_e_.' Niles only hesitated a second over the choice between the rare glory of sex with his wife and the agony of having to explain his idiotic behaviour to someone whose opinion of him could hardly go any lower... but who had cupid bow's lips and eyes as deep as the heavens.  
  
"No hurry," he said. "None at all."  
  
"One cup of coffee, then" Daphne said. "And you explain to me how this is all your fault."  
  
"One cup," Niles agreed.  
  
The inside of the diner smelled of old grease, a smell Niles knew would permeate the fine weave of his suit and remain there like a terminal illness. He pulled out his handkerchief to wipe down his seat then realised a bed sheet soaked in industrial cleaner would not do the trick. Sadly, Niles sacrificed his fine square of hand-woven cotton as permanent covering for the chair and sat down.  
  
"Hey, Daphne. The usual?" The man who asked the question wore an apron which appeared to be half the cause for the resident aroma.  
  
"Hallo, Bert. That would be lovely, thank you." Daphne glanced at Niles. "I like their apple pie. Your father prefers cherry or pecan."  
  
"Apple," Niles said. While Frasier maintained that there were no real grounds for anyone to trust Daphne's taste in food over his father's, Niles invariably did.  
  
The pie was not too bad, considering, but the coffee tasted like unfiltered mud from an archaeological dig. As Niles tried to look out of the window to check on his car without seeming too obvious about it, a couple of middle-aged hooligans came in. They caught sight of Daphne and made a beeline in their direction. Good lord, they were going to hit on her and Niles would have to die defending her honour. He set his jaw and decided he was prepared to do so. Not only would it prove him worthy of his goddess, it would also save him from having to face Maris later.  
  
"Hey good-looking," one of the gorillas leered at Daphne. "Where's your boyfriend?"  
  
"Now wait a..." was all Niles got out before Daphne interrupted.  
  
"At home, in bed, as you should be," Daphne smiled at them. "I'm here with his son tonight."  
  
"Hey, you're Dr. Crane, from the radio?" The leer turned into a grin and one of them stuck out his hand. "My folks are nuts about your show."  
  
"No, it's not Frasier, it's his brother: Dr. Niles Crane."  
  
"Oh. I didn't know Marty had two sons," was the predictable answer. Niles slumped, wishing he had indeed died defending Daphne's honour and perhaps preserved his dignity.  
  
"Now you do. Dr. Crane, this is Sergeant Williams and Detective McFadden, they are friends of your father's."  
  
"Not very close, I presume." Niles said, for at least that would explain why they did not know Martin Crane had two sons.  
  
"Fifteen, twenty years," Detective McFadden said. They made small talk with Daphne for a few more minutes and mispronounced his name as they said good-bye. Niles did not mind as much as he normally would; the two men had further diluted Daphne's anger and for that he could forgive anything.  
  
"You've come here before?" Niles asked. That kind of obvious question usually received a sarcastic response from Frasier but Daphne just nodded.  
  
"Once or twice a month," she said. "Your father used to come here quite a bit when he was a policeman. He still likes it." Daphne's face contorted slightly and for the first time Niles saw that the idea of quitting her job had to be hurting Daphne as much as any of them.  
  
"Daphne..." Her eyes were shiny with tears. She quickly interrupted.  
  
"You were going to tell me how all this is your fault," she reminded him.  
  
"Yes." And so he did. Every detail confessed as true and straightforward as she deserved, from his fight with Maris to the new Mercedes to being called a coward by his older brother.  
  
"I went into your room," Niles concluded. "To make Frasier admit that he had been trying to bribe you as he said I had bribed Maris."  
  
"You what?" Her voice grew low, fury losing its battle to hurt. "Dr. Crane, I didn't stay because your brother offered to have my room re-done, I stayed because I love my job and he promised this would never happen again. How could you think I..." Daphne struggled for control. "Just because you and your brother are filthy rich... I mean, either of you could offer someone like me a million things that I only dream of without feeling the financial loss, but what good is that if I can't trust you? If I feel you have no respect for me?"  
  
He normally loved to hear himself described as filthy rich but the way Daphne choked out the words put the emphasis on 'filthy' and made him feel smaller and more contemptible than would have done the worst of insults. And that she believed he, who revered her as one of heaven's greatest masterpieces, had no respect for her... Tears welled up in Niles' eyes as they did in hers.  
  
"I'm so sorry," he said, wishing that if he said it enough she would believe it. "When Frasier said you would quit, it stopped being a game, but believe me, even then I had no idea things had gone so far."  
  
"That things had gone so far?" Daphne blinked hard, angry again. "You went into my room, invaded my personal space, just because you were cross with your brother."  
  
"Yes," Niles said, even more deeply ashamed because it had taken him this long to realise the extent of his crime. Admitting he was wrong, not just to appease someone - usually his wife - but because he was fully aware that he had behaved disgracefully, was not something that came easy to Niles. Digging deep inside of himself, Niles came up with something he did not know he possessed: the courage to continue and to say the most painful words he had ever had to - had ever wanted to -- say.  
  
"It had nothing to do with you and you were the only one hurt," he said. "I can only tell you that I've never felt this bad about anything in my entire life and I beg you not to punish Frasier or Dad for my stupidity. Neither of them did anything but try to repair the damage I had done.  
  
"And for the love of god," Niles continued from the bottom of his heart. "If you love the job, please don't punish yourself by quitting. I could not live with myself knowing I caused you that kind of pain."  
  
The anger and injury slowly drained from Daphne's beautiful eyes. She gazed at him levelly. Niles rushed on.  
  
"If you need me to do so I will promise not to come by the apartment again. Ever." What was he saying? Whatever needed to be said. A moment ago he had been stunned to find that nothing mattered more than not losing Daphne. Now there was something mattered even more than that. Something within him had changed. He, the notoriously selfish Dr. Niles Crane, was willing not to lay eyes on this angel - his greatest source of joy - again if only he could spare her pain.  
  
All he wanted was for her to feel safe, comfortable and happy. Just the opposite, he realised with a pang, of what his actions tonight had made her feel.  
  
"You mean the world to me... us," Niles told her. "There is no question of finding a replacement; you are irreplaceable." In so many more ways than one, but Niles stuck to the topic at hand. "No one knows better than Frasier and I how trying Dad can be. Frasier and I were never able to get close to him. You know a million things about him Frasier and I never took the time to learn. You... you know what kind of pie Dad likes. You know his friends and they know you," he added, thinking again how the two men had never heard of him. Nor had he ever heard of them either. Except for Duke, Niles would be hard pressed to dig up the names of any of his father's friends.  
  
"You are not just a wonderful physical therapist; you are like family to us all. In fact, it is you who make us a family in a way no one else has, not even mother." Niles paused as he was bombarded by revelation after revelation, speaking them as they came to him and realising the wondrous truth of his own words. Realising that behind the goddess of his dreams was a woman who had had a profound effect on his life and the lives his family. An effect he had never really seen.  
  
"If it weren't for you Dad would probably be in a home right now. Or either he or Frasier would be in jail for killing the other. I certainly would not have come by as often. Before you came along I only visited Dad once a week and had no intention of getting close to my brother again." He did not elaborate on the truth of that statement. The words came fast but still his mind raced ahead of him, running at the speed of light through time and time again that Daphne had made Elliot Bay Towers feel more a home than his and Maris' mansion ever would. He might have spilled it all out: the glazed carrots she made when she knew he was coming for dinner, the cup of coffee fixed just the way he liked it, the way she talked to him as if he were neither above her or beneath her - which was how other women spoke to him - but with sweet honesty, as a friend. The way her cheerful greetings - good morning, Dr. Crane; good afternoon, Dr. Crane; good evening, Dr. Crane - woke him up every morning, their echo the incentive he needed to devise his daily excuse to drop by Frasier's. To see her.  
  
Yes, he might have told her all that, if tears had not started threatening again at the thought of losing all that forever. He wanted her to stay more than anything in the world, but he also meant what he had told her earlier.  
  
"Daphne, I can't stress enough to you... this was all my fault; Frasier and Dad were just trying to repair the damage brought on by my insensitive actions. If you want to punish anyone, punish me, but please... please don't leave us."  
  
Daphne's eyes glistened again, but this time it was not with hurt. And the way she looked at him... Niles had made the best decision of his life coming here. If he never saw her again, this is how he would remember her. Not with her earlier cold expression, but with this one; touched, almost tender. A sudden pain made him look down. He had been clutching his fork handle so hard it had left an imprint on his palm.  
  
"Was that your father I heard crashing to the floor before I left?" Daphne spoke for the first time.  
  
"Er..." Oh, right. There was a vague memory of Dad grimacing from the floor. Well, everyone knew Frasier was the good son. Even Detective McFadden. "Might have been."  
  
"And you and your brother just left him there?" Niles could not believe it. Daphne's mouth was twitching and a familiar sparkle was in her eyes. "You are a right couple of daft monkeys, aren't you?"  
  
"Yes," Niles agreed. "We certainly are."  
  
"Were you serious about not coming back to the apartment?" she asked.  
  
"Yes," Niles repeated. If it killed him, and it probably would, he would do this for Daphne. He gazed at her, determined to fill his eyes with her before she left his vision forever, the last breath of a drowning man.  
  
"Good. Now, I wonder what it would take to extract the same promise from your father and brother. And Eddie too. This job would be a lot easier if I just had the whole place to myself." Daphne laughed. "Well, I guess I could see how it would be impossible for you three to get on without me. I suppose I could give it one last go."  
  
"You'll stay?" his voice was a mere croak.  
  
"Why not? We will have to go over house rules again, though."  
  
Niles nodded so hard he pulled a muscle in his neck.  
  
"Daphne, thank you. I can't tell you how much this means to me."  
  
"It means a lot to me too. Even though he can be a real pain in the privates I do love your father. I love your brother as well."  
  
"Well, two out of three is not bad," Niles said sadly massaging his sore neck. Daphne too had apparently forgotten that Marty Crane had a second son.  
  
"Two out of... oh, no, it's three out of three," Daphne laughed. "Although it will be hard to look again at someone who's had my bra in his mouth."  
  
"What? But I... What?" Niles' coffee cup clattered across the counter and crashed to the floor on Bert's side. Bert glared at him.  
  
"Don't you worry." Daphne was still chuckling. "I love Eddie too. In fact, I forgave him before the rest of you even though he is the cheekiest of the lot."  
  
"Oh." Naturally. The dog. Niles sighed deeply. Then Daphne's hand was on the side of his face, circling into his hair before returning and giving his cheek a gentle, affectionate pinch.  
  
"I'm joking, Dr. Crane. It would have hurt just as much to lose you as any of them and I hope you will continue dropping by to see us. Just be sure you keep to your part of the house."  
  
"Agreed," Niles managed, still in shock and deeper in love than ever before. He might be returning to an empty bed tonight, but it would not be a cold one. He knew from experience that the afterglow brought on by Daphne's touch would burn bright for days.  
  
"Well, this calls for a second cup of coffee," Daphne said cheerfully. Her words might have said suicide but her tone said celebration. Niles beamed at her.  
  
He ordered them each a second piece of pie and tried his luck with the tea (which tasted like something off a high-school Bunsen burner and made him pine for the coffee) and focused every sense he gentlemanly could on Daphne.  
  
"I'm still taking up your brother's offer to have my room re-done," she was saying. "That should be fun. You know, when I was a girl in Manchester, I was the only person in my family with my own room. It was little more than a cupboard but you should have heard my brothers go on about it..."  
  
Now that she had agreed to stay, he meant to talk to Frasier about a raise. It would not hurt for Daphne to have her own car either...unless tonight's driving was not an expression of her anger but her normal behaviour behind a wheel. Never mind, he would ask Dad about that. It was not about a bribe, he knew. Nor was it about his feelings for her. True, in the space of hours those feelings had deepened more than he could have imagined, but in all her beautiful radiance he also saw her more clearly, and more human, than ever before.  
  
She had feelings that could be hurt. She had needs that deserved to be respected. She was, as he had said, irreplaceable and it was up to him, his brother and his father to make her feel so comfortable and valued that she would never again have cause to leave them.  
  
Niles smiled at Daphne who was happily polishing off the rest of her pie and washing it down with the tar-flavoured coffee as unjudgmentally as she did everything. Even putting up with Dad. Even putting up with himself and with Frasier.  
  
"My room also where my family stashed old and sickly relatives to die. Those were the only times my brothers kept their distance. Couldn't bear the smell of medicine, they said, but if you ask me, it was miles better than the stench of docks and wet, dirty clothes that came from their rooms or the smell of beer and bourbon from mum and dad's. My brother Billy and I aired out the house whenever we could but there was always someone complaining about the cold, especially mum. She said we should keep warm to prepare for the afterlife...Is that your cell phone?"  
  
"Yes. Excuse me." It must had been ringing for a while but Niles had been mesmerised. He guessed before answering that it would be Nadia informing him that Maris had yo-yoed back to the East Wing and that that meant he could never expect a repeat of yesterday's night of passion.  
  
"Very well. Yes, tell Mrs. Crane I understand."  
  
"Is something wrong?" Daphne asked when he had hung up.  
  
"No," Niles said, only slightly disturbed by the truth of his own words. Daphne had agreed to remain a part of his life. "Nothing as important as this. So... your room in Manchester?"  
  
"Oh, yes. Well, anyway, there was one time - it was a particularly cold winter, I remember because Nigel brought a dead hedgehog into the house and it was ages before anyone noticed, even Aunt Sally who can smell blood from across a wet field..."  
  
Niles sighed happily. And so it went. 


End file.
